Matt Damon can still remember the excitement of his father allowing him to stay up late to watch all of "Saturday Night Live" when he was eight years old.
Damon skipped the jokes in his "SNL" monologue on Saturday to pay tribute to those heartwarming moments with his dad, Kent Damon, who died at 74 on Dec. 14, 2017, nearly a year to the day that Damon hosted the show.
“So, week after week, I tried to stay up, and it wasn’t until I was eight years old that I made it all the way to the end,” Damon said. "I probably didn’t get all the jokes, but I laughed at everything that my dad laughed at.
"And although it was way past our bedtime, my dad knew there was nothing more important in the world than to laugh with the people that you love.”
Damon, 48, is now a father of four himself with wife Luciana Barroso. History repeated itself when his own 8-year-old daughter, Stella, was in attendance at "SNL" with her siblings on Saturday and allowed to stay up and watch the whole show.
"My father passed away a year ago yesterday, and tonight my big brother is in Boston right now watching with his two boys, and all my kids are here, including my youngest, who happens to be eight years old," he said.
Before Stella was going to commit to staying up so late, she needed a few more bits of information.
"So my wife and I told her that she can stay up all the way until 1 a.m. and she can watch 'Saturday Night Live.' And she said, 'Who’s hosting?’
"And I said "Me, your dad, Matt Damon’...and she said, 'Who’s the musical guest?’"
Hopefully Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson were enough to convince Stella to make it to 1 a.m. in honor of her grandfather.
Damon's father died from complications involving multiple myeloma, a rare and incurable blood cancer, a diagnosis that was first revealed in 2011.
Damon's heartfelt remembrance of watching "SNL" with his dad had many other fathers cherishing those moments with their own children or thinking back to when their own parents allowed them to stay up late as kids.
Damon concluded his monologue with a salute to those special moments.
"Here’s to all the moms and dads who let their kids stay up too late for all the right reasons,'' he said.